March 27th 2015
The end of the competitive wrestling season is almost here. With the Junior-Senior Championships finished, the GMAA season done and the Cadet-Juvenile Championships as well as the Jeux de Montreal just around the corner, I figured it might be some time for a little introspection of what's gone thus far. I'll start with something is a little closer to my field of experience which the high school wrestling season.
Since the school strike of the late 90's which had almost all public high schools in Quebec veto participation by teachers in extra-curricular activities, the GMAA has never fully recovered from this work stoppage. I remember being an athlete at the now defunct Argyle Academy and competing in a GMAA Championships that lasted the better part of the day and contained nearly twenty schools participating, both in the public and private sector. Weight categories had upwards of 20 competitors per weight, many of them filled with top flight athletes that would go on to represent Quebec at the Canadian Nationals. And this was before Girls Wrestling appeared in the GMAA. This year's championship, hosted by Heritage Regional contained 9 schools, less than half the number schools with very few athletes. Many things can be attributed to the drop in numbers, many of which I won't get into since it would seem like a rant. Needless to say, participation from French schools must be made imperative as the numbers in the English schools will not increase and will remain constant for the near future. The reason for this tangent of thinking is that there seems to be another strike looming for not only the province of Quebec but other provinces as well as the government seeks to cut budgets everywhere. How will this affect our numbers?
On a more positive note, Beurling Academy repeated as the GMAA Champions in the Boys division and KSS retained its title as the Girls Champions. Could we be seeing the birth of a new dynasty after years of fairly level competition? The prospect for this is quite exciting and only time will tell.
The next thing that I want to talk about is the Junior-Senior Nationals. I have to admit that it was pretty exciting attending my first Senior Nationals as a coach. The last time that I had participated in the Senior Nationals was as an athlete so it was almost like it was full circle that I had now come back as a coach. The one thing that I had also noticed there was that the numbers were also down there as well at the Junior National Championships. I remember much larger numbers when I was there as an athlete and I'm wondering if what we're seeing in the province of Quebec is happening around the country as well. If so, what could be the problem. In this society where everyone is hyper-sensitized to the physical toll that sports take on the body, has the physical nature of wrestling scared off many would be athletes from participating?
Upcoming Events
Awards
